Biography
János Vaszary was a Hungarian painter and graphic artist, one of the most significant masters of 20th century Hungarian fine art. He began his studies at the Pattern Drawing School with Bertalan Székely and János Greguss. After 1887, he first studied in Munich with von Hackl and von Löfflitz. Influenced by the pictures exhibited in Munich by the French painter Bastien-Lepage, he went to Paris, where he enrolled in the Julian Academy in 1899. Simon Hollósy and the painters of the Nagybánya artist colony grouped around him had the greatest influence on him, but his art remained French-inspired throughout.
From before the age of twenty, he was a regular exhibiting artist at the National Salon, and in 1912 he also had an exhibition at the Art Gallery. In 1916, he exhibited his pictures as a war painter at the press headquarters. In 1909, 1920 and 1924, he had exhibitions at the Ernst Museum. In 1922, he had a collection exhibition in the Helikon Salon. From the end of the 1920s, he participated in exhibitions organized by the UME.
His early works were created in the spirit of Art Nouveau. The influence of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes can be discovered in his Art Nouveau paintings such as the Byzantine Madonna, Golden Age, the latter of which is one of the masterpieces of the Hungarian Art Nouveau. His early applied art works, such as the tapestries he designed, which uses Hungarian folk art motifs, are also significant. Later, he returned to realistic-naturalistic life pictures. In the second half of the first decade of the 1900s, the influence of French impressionism can be felt in his paintings, and then he came under the influence of Fauve painting.
He later lived in Tata, where he often stayed from the 1910s until his death in the studio house in Tóváros designed by Ede Wigand from Toroczka and built in 1911. The villa contains the building elements of the Székely residential building, as the decorative elements of the Székely woodcarving art. He painted many of his works in his villa and in the city. During the First World War, he painted dramatic pictures from the front. His expressionist paintings were created at this time and in the few years after the war. After that, however, he traveled to Paris again and returned to the traditions of French painting. His pictures with fast, loose, light brushstrokes were made at that time.
From 1920 he was a teacher at the College of Fine Arts, reorganized by Károly Lyka, until his retirement in 1932. He was an excellent teacher at the college, he taught new styles and tried them all himself. His individual style has always been characterized by dynamic, sketchy brushwork.